Saturday, April 6, 2013

The EPJ Daily Alert, Theft and IP

I have been following your debate with Stephan Kinsella with interest, although I am wondering how you see the IP terms that are binding in the agreement between me as subscriber of the alert and you as publisher.

I am a market strategist at a company [...] in Johannesburg, South Africa. Some of my research was actually recently featured on EPJ here. I read and understand the views you communicate in the Alert, which are then integrated into my understanding of economic developments in the world. Like you, I take information from various sources, apply my Austrian economics formula to them and come up with a view of the markets, economy, politics, etc. (which I guess you would describe as “ideas”).

Typically what can happen is that I read something on the Alert, understand it, agree with it, integrate it into my market strategy and I then advise paying clients based on this. I don’t only base my view on the Daily Alert but integrate both other primary and secondary sources as well.

In your view of ideas being scarce, have I breached our contract? Do you regard this as ‘lost revenue’ to yourself if I earn a living off reading your ideas, understanding them, building on them, and communicating them? (enter “some” before each of those)

What if I understand your idea, communicate it to someone else, and that person then sells it?

Would appreciate to hear your take on these questions.

Kind regards,

What has to be recognized is that there is a difference between ownership of property and the ability to control that ownership in full. For example, I took the picture of this sign outside the Mises Institute.

Clearly, MI does not want people cutting through their property. The sign will stop many but probably not all from doing so. If MI placed a gate on their property, it would most likely result in even greater protection of their property. If MI placed a gate and security guards every 10 feet, the property would be even more secure from trespassers

It is a cost benefit analysis as to how far they want to go to protect their property from trespassers.

In the United States, variety stores in large cities, such as Walgreens and CVS, often have shaving equipment behind a locked glass case. You have to call an employee of the store to get it for you. The same stores generally, however, do not place toothpaste under lock and key. The difference is not that the stores have different ownership rights in the two products. It is simply a case that they do a cost benefit analysis of what they will lose if a product is stolen versus how much they will lose in sales. Clearly, these stores have calculated that they are willing to absorb more loss of toothpaste than they are of the more expensive razors.

If protection of property were their only goal, which it clearly is not, they could put all their goods behind a counter and require you to ask for individual products. They don't do this because they have calculated that it is best to absorb some theft of their property, because the profit is greater if products are readily available to shoppers, even though this means some theft will occur.

It is the same thing with the ALERT, I could require each person who wants to subscribe to the ALERT to undergo a background check whereby I could prevent anyone who is in the financial industry from subscribing to the ALERT for fear they would disseminate my ideas beyond that of their personal use. But I don't do this for two reasons.

1. I would have much fewer subscribers, if I demanded a background check. I am thus willing to absorb leakage of my ideas instead of demanding background checks of potential readers.

2. Here is the real kicker. Only in Norman Stephan Kinsella's bizarro world are ideas non-scarce. My ALERT goes out to roughly a thousand subscribers every day (with some even disseminating the information further to clients and friends), yet somehow, the ALERT hasn't found its way into the mind of everyone in the world. Imagine my shock. Indeed, it continues to be an economic good, new people subscribe to the ALERT on a daily basis.

The real world just doesn't work the way Norman Stephan Kinsella thinks. Ideas are scarce, using the word in the way it is generally used. And even if I blast out my ideas on the economy every morning via email ( an easily reproducible form of presenting ideas) with some of the subscribers disseminating the information to others, the information doesn't get out to everyone in the world. I still get new subscribers to the ALERT daily. Only Norman Stephan Kinsella would blast the email to maybe two or three people and jump to the insane conclusion that the information is not scarce anymore,think the ALERT is not an economic good and stop offering the product.

63 comments:

Maybe the AIPers can clarify their position more. Rather than "scarcity" they should say "reproducibility."

I agree with RW that ideas are scarce. They must be. I have ideas right now that no one knows about. We all do. By definition, that means the ideas are scarce. It is the act of reproducing the idea that makes it no longer scarce.

So the AIPer is saying that they should have the right to reproduce ideas and IPers are saying that the originator of the idea should have the exclusive right to keep it scarce.

The issue of coercion via monopoly should removed from the debate because AIPers already accept having a monopoly on all other property (such as their body).

So, should IP be reproducible without restriction or not? Should this question be answered on a utilitarian or natural rights basis? And regardless of which, why?

It would be helpful I think if the debate could be distilled down to these central questions to keep it focused.

As long as the two sides are talking past each other, then there is no progress. And as long as it's more important to "win" than be right, there is no progress.

Fair enough. An idea is a non-physical thing. Meaning you don't have the normal physical limitations that the other goods have. Primarily more than one person can have the same idea at the same time. Unlike say land where two people can not occupy the same space at the same time. A having idea x doesn't not limit B from having idea x. Scarcity is the economic phenomenon of one person having use of a good at one time. Ideas are therefor not scarce. This is the entire crux of the debate: whether a non-physical good is scarce.

In your blog space, Wenzel, you choose to ignore this simple logic. You call it bizarro. Then continue you on with the composition fallacy called Intellectual "Property" as if using property in the name makes it so.

Give us some more examples of physical property being scarce and saying "see, you can limit people from using your property". This is getting really old.

@Jt$ - "Primarily more than one person can have the same idea at the same time."

If I give you a lift in my car, does the fact that we are both using it at the same time then mean we now both own it? That seems to be your argument.

I have a great investment strategy I use. OK, now you use it. But you can't can you until you take the positive action of reproducing my strategy in your mind first. Until people have reproduced it it remains scarce.

Scarcity is not a deciding factor in this debate. Only by taking the positive action of copying the idea does it become less scarce. The issue is whether people should be permitted to reproduce or not. If so, why? And minus the "scarcity" and "monopoly" diversions.

@Jt$,Scarcity is irrelevant. If a developer can sell a house with a restrictive covenant such as "there shall be no bonfires", why can't A sell to B information with a restriction on reproduction?

As plenarchist said it boils down to protecting contract and thus natural rights versus some assertion that society will be better off if the sale of information is strangely excluded from the law of contract.

Below is from Locke's "The Second Treatise of Civil Government" Chap 4 "Of Property." I don't see scarcity as a condition.

"The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others."

Re:Restrictive covenants..it's still not a good analogy IMO (comparing ideas to tangible things), but I also would consider the legitimacy of restrictive covenants to be questionable in general. I could possibly view them as reasonable if there was a reasonable time restriction associated with them (e.g., no bonfires until year 1/1/2023), but for a restrictive "curse" to be assigned to a piece of property in perpetuity, long after the original seller (and buyer) are long dead, with no one even left who can decide to remove this curse? Seems pretty ridiculous to me.

You say he owns an income steam? If true that means he has right to legally protect this income steam from competitors who independently discover "the formula." What if Drudge site changes the way it operates making "the formula" moot? Can he demand compensation from Drudge for the lost income steam?

@Scott,Can a restriction in a valid legal agreement last forever? When interpreting trusts, courts developed the concept of the 'rule against perpetuities', to limit control by a deceased person. To summarize, it means a restriction ends after everyone who was alive when the trust was made is dead plus 21 years.

@Andrew - IP is based on a convention of title. He who has the title owns the IP. Kinda like your house, car, stock certificates, etc.

@PH - IP terms can be whatever "society" wants them to be. Unfortunately, in the coporatocracy of the US, copyrights have been extended, and extended, and extended. The term started out as 14 years I believe. Patents are 20 years. But these numbers are made up. Copyright is the worst offender by far.

@Jeremy - "Private Property Rights aren't for wealth protection. You don't have a right to an income."

Private property rights *are* for wealth protection. And we can have a right for whatever "society" wants there to be one. Rights are designed. The question is, on what basis do we define our rights? And "natural rights" don't make sense to me. Rights should be rational, consistent, and serve the purpose of promoting the principle of equal freedom. Why equal freedom? Read "Social Statics."

Not everyone Knows English. Does that make it scarce? It isn't superabundant to those who only know some other language. What is to stop me from enforcing a contract on a student I teach english to that stipulates they may not use the english I taught them? Say our contract is for reading and not speaking. Or for only speaking certain ideas I say are O.K.

The more I listen to the anti-IP proponents, the more they remind me of communists. Communists argue against private property by saying "Hey, I didn't sign a contract that you own that land! Why should I be bound by it?" Well, we libertarians believe that a property title binds everyone. A contract is a conditional transfer of a property title. It binds everyone, not to fulfill the condition, but to respect the transfer of property title.

With respect to the scarcity argument, I think at this point the anti-IP crowd has to admit that some ideas are scarce. I consider this point settled. I think now they will argue that ideas are not rivalrous. That is also not true. For example, bitcoins are clearly rivalrous. Two people can't both consume the same bitcoin. The same thing can be said for domain names, IP addresses, and similar goods. Another example of a rivalrous idea would be a password that gives you access to an unclaimed treasure. Only one person can consume the idea. So I think it is clear that at least some ideas are rivalrous and can, based even on Kinsella's requirement, be owned. I think the anti-IP crowd needs to concede this point. I think the discussion that remains is: Can scare and nonrivalrous ideas be owned?

Actually, pro-IP advocates have much more in common with communists than anti-IP advocates do. The reason is that communists and pro-IP advocates justify their interpretation of rights by an entirely circular argument.

Communists: Property is evil because property rights undermine the rights of the collective. Because property rights undermine the rights of the collective, property itself must be evil.

Pro-IP advocate: Stealing is a violation of property rights. Because property rights exist (or should be respected, rather) ideas belong to the first owner or whoever is the contractual heir. Because the this person owns the idea, using it without due permission is the same as stealing it.

Anti-IP advocate: Let us start from natural rights and deduce from here which things can be owned and which things cannot be owned.

Whether or not the anti-IP argument is right, you cannot argue it is circular.

As for scarcity, would you mind reading my post below about the class/instance fallacy and either rebutting it or providing a definition of "idea" that fits it?

Ed Ucation - your faulty reasoning aside, all the examples you've been citing are one category error after another.

What's being sold with bitcoins is a title to a sequence of numbers that is recognized by a certain protocol. Anyone is free to produce the same sequence of numbers for themselves, so no that idea is certainly not rivalrous. What they aren't free to do is have that sequence recognized as being linked with their wallet by other people. Because you would have violated whatever bitcoin protocol is in place and people who use bitcoin agree to the protocol. The idea is completely free, but people's actions are their own.

And a password is certainly not rivalrous. Anyone could use the same password. This example completely disproves your point as it hinges on the fact that the physical treasure is in fact what is rivalrous.

Your reasoning is entirely circular. What's being debated is whether ideas can be considered property, and yet you keep going on about property titles binding everyone. Everyone agrees about that, there's no need to re-state it.

As far as the original Rothbard example, let me break it down what was transferred in the contract:

A transfers a mousetrap to B, if B transfers some money and his right to produce the same mousetrap to A.

So B now has a mousetrap, and has transferred his mousetrap production rights to A. All of the anti-IP people agree that the rights transferred in this contract must be honoured.

Now, C, who has always had the rights to make a mousetrap, has not transferred anything, and yet you deny him his property rights to do as he wishes with his property.

A good is rivalrous if consumption by one consumer prevents consumption by another consumer. Is this the definition or not? Please explain to me how two people can both use the same bitcoin. Please explain to me how both people can use the same password. After the first person uses the password, the treasure is gone. The second person cannot consume the password. I think you are confusing "use" with "consumption."

I beg to differ that my reasoning is circular. I made two different points in my post and you somehow combined them into an IF-THEN statement.

As for the mousetrap example, how did C obtain the mousetrap? If he obtained it from B, he gave up his right to make a copy by obtaining it from B, because the property title that B transferred to C included a restrictive covenant to give up that right. Of course, if he discovered the mousetrap independently, than he retains the right to copy it.

It appears I also mixed up the words "use" and "consumption," so I can't blame you for doing it :) What I meant to say is that two people can both use a bitcoin, but only one person can consume it. Same for the password.

You seem to ignore the distinctions I make in my rebuttals and only respond to my disagreement.

I didn't say that bitcoins aren't rivalrous, or that your password + treasure isn't rivalrous. I said that they are rivalrous because they are an idea combined with something else. The idea being non rivalrous, the "something else" being rivalrous.

For bitcoins, the actions of the users of the protocol are what makes bitcoins rivalrous. And a bitcoin is the idea of the number, plus these rivalrous actions.For your treasure example, the password itself is not rivalrous, but the treasure is. Consumption of either one involves consumption of the RIVALROUS component - the actions of other bitcoin users or the physical treasure. You seem to be unable to grasp that these products are not just ideas but ideas + some other rivalrous thing.

To make this explicitly clear: Would you agree that numbers are not rivalrous? I can use the number 2, 3, or 4 and you can do so too right? But what if some crazy dictator came to power and announced that numbers were to be owned by individuals, and only the individual owning the number could use it. The usage of the numbers is now rivalrous. Does this mean that the idea of each number is rivalrous? Of course not, it means that somehow society has put in place a rivalrous framework around using the ideas, not that the ideas themselves are rivalrous. Bitcoins are the same: ideas are not rivalrous, but "bitcoins" are not just ideas, they are ideas + rivalrous actions in a voluntary framework.

Again with the Rothbard example you haven't responded to the distinction I made. You ask how did C obtain the mousetrap, ignoring that the mousetrap and the rights to produce it are 2 SEPARATE things, and that everyone starts out with the right to produce it (otherwise how did A have the right in the first place?)

The distinction I made is this: The reason B does not have the right to produce the mousetrap is NOT because he did not obtain the rights from A, as Rothbard says. The reason he does not have the rights is because he transferred them TO A, meaning he had them already. The rights to produce it are SEPARATE from the mousetrap itself and were ALREADY in possession by B BEFORE contracting with A. If you can't respond to this distinction there is no point in getting to C.

The question is about what Property claim is enforceable in the libertarian view? Obviously most libertarians would say Slavery is not a justly enforceable property claim. If we assumed it was legitimate to own another human body then we could stamp it and force others to recognize our property right in the slave and the products of that slave. An object is made of scarce resources. Materials that can't be held by more than one final decider. An Idea itself can be held by any number of final deciders. Therefore the idea itself is not scarce. The words themselves in a dictionary are not scarce. any particular object called a dictionary either belongs to you or some other person. The dictionary is scarce, the words are not. A property right in the dictionary is legitimate but a property right in the words is not. Even if you organize those words into a poem, The book of poetry is legitimate property, the words organized into what someone thinks is poetry is not.If you believe IP is legitimate in the libertarian view, why not property in the words, letters and english itself?

Sleuth,This is a fair question. To paraphrase it, if a book of recipes can be protected by IP, why not a single recipe or part thereof e.g. "take an egg".

The answer is the law usually resorts to the concept of reasonableness. E.g. negligence is defined as the breach of a duty of care to a neighbor. As a judge said in the most famous case on negligence: "Who is my neighbor? A person who is so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation." The standard of care owed is "that of a reasonable man - the man on the Clapham omnibus", which translated means an ordinary person.

The concept of reasonableness is dominant in law, especially civil law established by cases, even though its application can lead to unpredictability.

Say someone rents a car from Hertz for a week and then proceeds to take it apart, piece by piece, studying, photographing, etc. every part, and then reassembles it perfectly (such that no harm whatsoever was done to the car). They then return the car to Hertz on the date agreed to. Then, over the course of the next few months they completely assemble their own exact functioning repllca of that car using parts they have purchased or manufactured themselves. Have they stolen the car from Hertz?

To make the analogy complete, there would have to be a clause in the rental contract stipulating that you cannot disassemble it. Then we're talking about breach of contract which is basically the same as theft.

Scott,If there was a contract term forbidding the disassembly of the car, the renter violated the contract; if not, he didn't. If there is no term expressly covering this, to settle the matter the courts imply in a term.

You focus on ideas and their copying, I on contract, and I fear my answer is unconvincing to you.

No, but disassembly is probably not allowed in your RENTAL contract. Your question would make sense if it was a purchased car. or if the renter had some kind of photographic memory and x-ray vision. The answer then would be : what exactly would have been stolen?What if someone saw the first car, then figured out how to make their own and sell it into competition with the first. Is that stealing too? Why not?

I'm fine arguing the point on contract alone. But I will say that I personally believe that any contract that in any way precludes me from using my own mind, body, and physical property as I desire is an unenforceable contract akin to me signing a contract providing you with some sort of lifetime ownership over part of my body or mind. As a Christian, I would not sign a contract that I had no intention of trying to keep, but I believe that such a contract is nevertheless unreasonable.

"Some might say this is an example of being precluded from using physical property as you desire."

Some would also consider such a contract more akin to renting. And, in any case, it's a poor analogy. A timeshare is a tangible thing (property). I can't control it the same week that someone else is controlling it. The terms are specific in the contract and there should be no debate about who has control over it during week 12 vs week 13. An idea, OTOH, can be controlled by many people at the same time, each using it to serve their own ends (or merely thinking about it and doing nothing with it). It is not tangible, so it does not share all of the same qualities as tangible things (property). The fact that it *can* share some qualities (subjective value) is causing the pro-IPer to make the leap that if it has subjective value (like tangible things), it must therefore be property. But tangible things are not property because they have subjective value, they are property because they are tangible.

Hey Bob and Nick and Ed Uducation and all the rest. Why don't you respond to this commentary made in a previous post?

ConzaApril 5, 2013 at 12:00 PMThe latest Rothbard commentary on IP outdating all of the above. Note the intellectual honesty. Note the admission of seeking further commentary. Note the request for more information. Note the shattering of your position that Rothbard saw copyright in perpetuity.

"...Finally, there is the almost incredible harassment of VCR owners. If I buy a VCR and a blank tape, I should be able to tape a movie or other program off my own TV set. If the TV or movie people don't like it, they should jolly well have to lump it. It is grotesque that movie producers might get the Supreme Court to agree to outlaw use of the VCR. Worse yet is that the movie producers are harassing poor SONY, who only manufactures and doesn't use VCRs. Obviously, SONY has the deep pockets to enjoin and sue, which most home owners do not. Obviously, too, the government would have a great deal of difficulty mobilizing an enormous Gestapo, armed to the teeth, to break in on and confiscate or destroy the VCRs in many million American homes. Defend your VCRs to the death, fellow Americans! In practice, then, the movie people are not going to outlaw VCRs. They will just force SONY and the other manufacturers to pay a tax to the movie people, a tax which will be passed on to every VCR buyer. But the unfortunate principle—and the higher cost—might well be enshrined in the books.

The problem in all these cases is not whether "property rights" should or should not be upheld. The problem in each of these cases is: Who should have the property right? The computer hacker to do what he wants with his own computer and his access to the telephone lines, or the other computer owner? The signal sender or the signal receiver in the latter's own equipment? The VCR owner or movie producers? In all of these cases I believe that the concept of copyright has been illegitimately extended to become invasive, and that the fact that the common law cannot combat these "crimes" is already an indication that they are not crimes at all.

But I am in an odd position here. Of all the people in the libertarian movement, I probably know the least about computer technology. There are few movement people lower tech than myself. And yet among all the computer mavens in the movement, I have seen no discussion of these thorny issues. But it is important to apply libertarian property rights theory, i.e. judgments in various areas on who is a criminal and who is a victim, to advancing technology. So on these matters I still have a relatively open mind. Before the Iron Door closes, I cheerfully invite libertarian theorists and high-tech mavens to submit papers, on any or all sides of this problem, for possible publication in the Libertarian Forum. Is there computer crime? Are VCR and satellite dish owners criminals? Please send in your discussions, and help advance libertarian theory."

IF I USED THE MURRAY ROTHBARD CARD TO SLAM DUNK THE CASE FOR IP, I WOULD CLEARLY AVOID ADRESSING THE ABOVE QUOTE AS IT WOULD CLOSE THE DEBATE OUTRIGHT.

Hans Hoppe and Murray Rothbard make the most sense here, and seeing as most anyone can and does ignore IP as a concept anyway,I would have say the Pro IP people simply can't avoid calling for internet controls to stop "infringment".

The Kinsella/ Wenzel debate was a poor display of an intellectual challenge to find the truth. Hans Hoppe vs. Wenzel I would love to see.

BS!!! Rothbard said he was all for VCR's and how people used them. The VCR was a copy and paste machine as is a computer. There has not been a coherent pro IP argument worth noting, as was Rothbard's challenge to prove his view otherwise. The Pro IP position is as it was then: It's property cause we say it is.

The personal computer and the internet is the modern VCR. No one is going to stop it or end it. Debate is great but people are simply ignoring IP as a property right - as they should.

He made a call for papers. Kinsella and Tucker have done just that. Advance libertarian theory. I don't think it takes any kind of stretch to come to the conclusion that Rothbard would have been persuaded by the new arguments and clarifications of old ones. Especially given sentiment against the Draconian measures suggested / adopted by statist policy makers in trying to clamp down on "intellectual property".

The VCR example is also analogous to the music industry and mp3 files re: ripping from radio, online streaming and torrents. "I should be able to tape a movie or other program off my own TV set [computer]. If the TV or movie people [music industry] don't like it, they should jolly well have to lump it." And logically on we go the book industry as well ;).

I also appreciate this post because it provides an insight as to why BobWenz has probably had such an emotional response to the issue - fear of loss of revenue from his EPJ Daily Alert subscriber base, as he imagines the content being proliferated elsewhere.

In any case; when will the positive case ever be put forward? Also I'm even more interested in his actual justification for libertarianism, and it's epistemological foundations. How about you start there Bob.

With cars, it is obvious that one can only own specific instances of cars. It doesn't make sense to say you own a class of cars. When you say "I own the Audi A3", you are referring to a specific instance of the class Audi A3 from a collection of instances of the class Car where the distinguishing feature is that the referenced instance belongs to Audi A3 in addition to Car.

It is important to note that the class does not actually exist. It is a mental abstraction enabled by the language we use.

When it comes to ideas, "specific" ideas are classes of patterns. There may be many instances of the class Drudge Formula, such as 1) in your mind, 2) on a piece of paper, 3) in someone else's mind.

The idea instances are scarce. The class is not. The idea instances exist; they are the particular electrical signals in your brain or the paper-and-graphite which constitutes the scribbled note. The class Drudge Formula does not exist; it is a mental abstraction.

Saying you own a class is like saying you own two. As in, the natural number two. Two is a class like Audi A3 or Drudge Formula. You could perhaps own two cars. All that really means is that the collection of instances that constitutes your property contains a subset which belongs both to the class Car and to the class Two. Saying you own Car is absurd -- and even ungrammatical.

This is a good comment, thank you Alan. This clear up the discussion somewhat. Yes, I believe we are talking about idea instances. I am saying that copying a first idea instance to a second idea instance transfers the covenant restriction to the second idea instance.

"Clearly, MI does not want people cutting through their property. The sign will stop many but probably not all from doing so. If MI placed a gate on their property, it would most likely result in even greater protection of their property. If MI placed a gate and security guards every 10 feet, the property would be even more secure from trespassers"

Land is scarce. Ideas are not scarce.

"It is a cost benefit analysis as to how far they want to go to protect their property from trespassers."

It is not from a cost benefit analysis from which we conclude who has the property right of the MI land property.

"In the United States, variety stores in large cities, such as Walgreens and CVS, often have shaving equipment behind a locked glass case. You have to call an employee of the store to get it for you. The same stores generally, however, do not place toothpaste under lock and key. The difference is not that the stores have different ownership rights in the two products."

False. Rights are not derived from strength of physical protection. You have a right to your person and property even if you are tortured and/or robbed. The possibility that you may be harmed or robbed does not imply you have a different right as compared to not getting harmed or robbed. By your flawed logic, we'd have to conclude that the Jews killed in the holocaust did not have the right to not be killed, because...they were killed.

"If protection of property were their only goal, which it clearly is not, they could put all their goods behind a counter and require you to ask for individual products. They don't do this because they have calculated that it is best to absorb some theft of their property, because the profit is greater if products are readily available to shoppers, even though this means some theft will occur."

This is all completely irrelevant to the question of who has the right to those goods and how that right is established.

"It is the same thing with the ALERT, I could require each person who wants to subscribe to the ALERT to undergo a background check whereby I could prevent anyone who is in the financial industry from subscribing to the ALERT for fear they would disseminate my ideas beyond that of their personal use.

"1. I would have much fewer subscribers, if I demanded a background check. I am thus willing to absorb leakage of my ideas instead of demanding background checks of potential readers."

"2. Here is the real kicker. Only in Norman Stephan Kinsella's bizarro world are ideas non-scarce. My ALERT goes out to roughly a thousand subscribers every day (with some even disseminating the information further to clients and friends), yet somehow, the ALERT hasn't found its way into the mind of everyone in the world. Imagine my shock. Indeed, it continues to be an economic good, new people subscribe to the ALERT on a daily basis."

That doesn't make the idea scarce. It makes the bodies and material property which are formed and shaped and moved in such a way that that a pattern signal is sent and perceived, scarce.

You've already been demolished on this point in 14 different ways from Sunday, and yet you keep repeating it as if it were a valid argument. Are you even paying attention?

Suppose I wrote down a 1000 digit number. This number is now in my head. Not everyone is actually thinking of this number at this moment in time. In fact, I would bet that nobody else but me has this number in mind right now. Now, the fact that only I know this number right now does NOT make the abstract number "scarce". Scarcity does not arise from the quantifable instances where a pattern is noticed. Scarcity arises from asking whether or not one individual using that thing makes it impossible for anyone else to use that same thing.

"The real world just doesn't work the way Norman Stephan Kinsella thinks. Ideas are scarce, using the word in the way it is generally used."

Kinsella isn't using the word "as it is generally used." He is using it the way it should be, and the way economists (most economists) say it should be used. You are using it in a way that should not be used, namely, based on the number of times and places the same thing occurs. It doesn't matter if a 284629 sided shape occurs only once for one object in the universe. That doesn't make the shape scarce. It is the object that is scarce. The shape is your mental idea of that object.

"And even if I blast out my ideas on the economy every morning via email ( an easily reproducible form of presenting ideas) with some of the subscribers disseminating the information to others, the information doesn't get out to everyone in the world. I still get new subscribers to the ALERT daily. Only Norman Stephan Kinsella would blast the email to maybe two or three people and jump to the insane conclusion that the information is not scarce anymore,think the ALERT is not an economic good and stop offering the product."

The idea isn't an economic good. What are economic goods are the electrons and computers, the monitors, the ethernet cables, the routers, switches, etc.

The idea is an abstract pattern that is not itself scarce, because it isn't an object of rivalry.

Please come back to the real world. In your mental masterbation green sky world, we are all debating the scarcity of 1000 digit numbers in your head.

Meanwhile, back in the blue sky real world, commerial contracts are negotiated by the millions daily, protecting software data and ownership rights which could be done by a private court system just as easily.

If every citizen of "Libertopia" has voluntarily signed a citizen's contract containing a right to IP clause, would you still object to the IP even under this condition of universal mutual consent? If so, on what grounds?

If I'm even understanding your question correctly then yes, I would. As I stated previously, I personally believe that any contract that in any way precludes me from using my own mind, body, and physical property as I desire is an unenforceable contract akin to me signing a contract providing you with some sort of lifetime ownership over part of my body or mind. As a Christian, I would not willingly sign a contract that I had no intention of trying to keep, but I believe that such a contract is nevertheless unreasonable/unenforceable. No one cannot voluntarily sign away their liberty to use their mind, body, and physical property as they desire.

The root of the argument is whether or not A is justified in coercing C not to use A's idea, when C learned it because B broke a contract. C's claim is "but I signed no such contract!" while A's claim is "it's called property rights."

If every individual in the society signed a contract which stipulates respecting IP, then the claim "I signed no such contract!" is obviously false. So the answer to your question is no, no objection.

The question can be asked in the opposite direction as well. If every individual in the society signed a contract that no form of IP was to be enforced whatsoever -- unless superseded by a new contract which applies only to the signatories, would you still object to C "stealing" A's idea?

Another example of a contract with a valid restriction is in employment law. Often for Sales people there is a clause saying you may not work for a local competitor after leaving until at minimum 12 months have elapsed. Do anti-IPers object to such a term?

@Alan.Sz,It is well established that when A sells a car to B and then B sells to C but B does not have a valid title, A can recover the car from C, and C suffers the loss. C can sue B for misrepresentation but in practice B usually has no money.

Another example is where B purports to sell a car to C claiming to be the owner but actually B had stolen the car from A. Again, the car is returned to A & C suffers the loss.

@alan - "The question can be asked in the opposite direction as well."

Sure. There could be "Libertopia IP" and/or "Libertopia AIP"... The point being that maybe the issue isn't IP per se but the political arrangement we live under currently. If so, then rather than debate IP in the context of coercion it would be better just on its own merits assuming everyone has consented to it.

@Andrew - "However, question to you, if in your Libertopia appears a person who does not sign the contract. Will this person by bound by the terms nevertheless?"

No person would appear in Libertopia who hasn't signed the contract or some version of it. Otherwise the person is trespassing. If someone outside Libertopia violates the IP clause, it wouldn't apply to them. In other words, the IP clause would apply only to the citizens.

plenarchist, are you saying that no Libertopia citizen allowed to sell any physical property to non-citizen? Would it be trespass for non-citizen to buy real estate in Libertopia without signing the citizen contract first? Are you also saying that all newborns are automatically bound by the contract?

So I just listened to Kinsella's lecture on why Locke's labor theory of property is supposedly wrong. The only conclusion I can come up with is that he has created this anti-IP theory and then created a whole philosophy around it to justify it. This forces him to jettison Rothbard's theory of property and declare things like "you can't own your labor," "we shouldn't use the word property, because then we get things like intellectual property," and "the labor theory of property is bad because it leads to the labor theory of value." How does the labor theory of property lead to the labor theory of value? How does "if you mix your labor with an unowned resource, you own it" lead to "the value of a good is based on how much labor was used to create it"? I am asking, because he does not explain it. Maybe one of his followers could enlighten me?

According to this paper, Locke did not hold to a labor theory of value:https://mises.org/journals/jls/2_4/2_4_3.pdf